President Donald Trump has said he is strongly considering pulling the US out of NATO, ratcheting up his criticism of European allies and exposing a wider rift in the transatlantic alliance – this time over America’s war alongside Israel against Iran.
While Trump’s talk of a possible NATO pullout dates back years, the comments to Britain’s Telegraph newspaper, published Wednesday, were among the clearest and most disparaging yet – suggesting the fracture has deepened perhaps to a point of no return.
Asked whether he would reconsider US membership in the alliance after the war on Iran ends, Trump replied: “Oh yes, I would say (it´s) beyond reconsideration.”
Contacted by The Associated Press, NATO did not provide an immediate comment.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, asked about the comment, said Britain was “fully committed to NATO” and called it “the single most effective military alliance the world has ever seen.”
Many European leaders have felt political pressure over the war, which faces opposition in their countries and has sent petroleum prices soaring as Iran has effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman through which about one-fifth of the world´s oil passes.
“Whatever the pressure on me and others, whatever the noise, I am going to act in the British national interest in all the decisions I make,” Starmer said Wednesday.
Long-simmering tensions within the alliance have bubbled up again over the war. As energy prices have spiked, Trump has been desperate to get countries to send their ships to the Strait. He´s called his NATO allies “cowards,” pulling at any rhetorical lever he can to get help with the fallout of a war that no ally was consulted on or asked to take part in.
For years, Trump has berated America’s European allies, urging them to assume greater responsibility for their own security and spend more on defense. He has argued that the US has done more for them than the other way around.
A US pullout would essentially spell the end of NATO, which flourished for decades under American leadership.
On Truth Social on Tuesday, Trump lashed out at countries “like the United Kingdom, which refused to get involved in the decapitation of Iran,” and suggested they buy US oil or go to the Strait of Hormuz themselves “and just take it.”
He also wants allies to help fix damage from the war that they had no part in starting.
The UK is working on plans that could help assuage Trump.
On Thursday, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper will host a virtual meeting of 35 countries that have signed up to help ensure security for shipping in the Strait after the war. Starmer said military planners will also work on a postwar security plan for the strait.
NATO is built on Article 5 of its founding treaty, which pledges that an attack on any one member will be met with a response from them all.
As the Iran war has spread, missiles and drones have been fired toward NATO member Turkey and a British military base on Cyprus, fueling speculation about what might prompt NATO to trigger its collective security guarantee and come to their rescue.
The alliance has not intervened or signaled any plan to. Secretary-General Mark Rutte – who has voiced support for Trump and America’s role in the alliance – has been focusing mostly on Russia’s war against Ukraine, which borders four NATO countries.
NATO operates uniquely by consensus. All 32 countries must agree for it to take decisions, so political priorities play a role. Even invoking Article 5 requires agreement among the allies. Turkey or the UK cannot trigger it alone.
In the Mideast war, Trump has bristled at the across-the-board rejection from European and other allies, and even rival China, to help secure the Strait of Hormuz.
Many European Union and NATO member country leaders have fumed since the war´s outset on Feb. 28 because they weren´t informed ahead of time, seen as a break with precedent.
Trump insisted he needed the element of surprise, and he spoke out about possible military action and visibly built up US forces in the region in the run-up to the war.
European leaders have called for the war to stop and want the United States and Iran to return to negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program, which America and Israel see as a threat.
The vocal opposition in Europe to Trump’s war against Iran has started to turn into action.
Spain – the most vocal critic in Europe – on Monday said it closed its airspace to US planes involved in the Iran war.
Early last month, France agreed to let the US Air Force use a base in southern France after receiving a “full guarantee” from the United States that planes not involved in carrying out strikes against Iran would land there.
Other countries have spoken out against it: Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Germany’s largely ceremonial president, last week called the aggression against Iran a “dangerous mistake” in violation of international law.
US relations with Europe had already soured in recent months over Trump’s call for Greenland – a semiautonomous territory of stalwart NATO ally Denmark – to become part of the United States, prompting many EU countries to rally behind Copenhagen.